Shayk was born in Yemanzhelinsk, Russia, to ethnic Tatar father and Russian mother. She says she inherited her unusual looks from her father and she has said that people often think she is South American. “My father was dark skinned, because he was Tatar, sometimes Tatars can look Brazilian,” she says. “I get my light eyes from my mother.” Shayk was bullied relentlessly by her classmates for having darker skin from her father. People in Russia are very pale skinned so being part Tatar she was the outcast in her school because of it. Shayk spent many nights wishing that she was just like everyone else but it was her unique characteristics that have made her who she is today. Shayk’s mother Natalia was a pianist who was the music teacher in a kindergarten and her father was a coal miner. She has one sibling, an older sister named Tatiana. Shayk started playing piano at age six. At age nine she enrolled in a music school and studied there for seven years, both playing the piano and singing in the choir since her mother wanted her to study music. Her father died of complications of pneumonia when she was 14, leaving her family with little money and forcing her mother to work two jobs to provide for the family.

After high school, Shayk studied marketing but was bored by it and entered a local beauty school with her older sister. While there, she was noticed by a person from a local modeling agency who was struck by her unusual beauty. She was urged to participate in the "Miss Chelyabinsk 2004" beauty contest and she won.